Island Culture: the Role of the Blasket Autobiographies in the Preservation of a Traditional Way of Life

Technological University Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin Articles School of Business and Humanities 2008 Island Culture: The Role of the Blasket Autobiographies in the Preservation of a Traditional Way of Life Eamon Maher Technological University Dublin, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ittbus Part of the Catholic Studies Commons, Folklore Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Maher, E. : Island Culture: The Role of the Blasket Autobiographies in the Preservation of a Traditional Way of Life, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 97, No. 387, Views of Ireland (Autumn 2008), pp. 263-274 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Business and Humanities at ARROW@TU Dublin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of ARROW@TU Dublin. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License Island Culture: The Role of the Blasket Autobiographies in the Preservation of a Traditional Way of Life Author(s): Eamon Maher Source: Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 97, No. 387, Views of Ireland (Autumn 2008), pp. 263-274 Published by: Irish Province of the Society of Jesus Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25660578 . Accessed: 03/09/2014 06:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Irish Province of the Society of Jesus is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 193.1.234.23 on Wed, 3 Sep 2014 06:54:24 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Island Culture: The Role of theBlasket Autobiographies in the Preservationof a TraditionalWay ofUfe Eamon Maher The Blasket Islands, located off the west coast of Kerry, are remarkable forhaving inspired a flourishing literature,mainly autobiographical innature, which is generally acknowledged as being of great anthropological value, as well as of significant literarymerit. When one considers that the islands never had a population of more than around 160 persons (with an average of closer to half that number) during the years covered by the autobiographies, the existence of such an importantchronicle of the simple and at times perilous life on these Atlantic outposts is all the more noteworthy. The language spoken on the Blaskets was Gaelic and, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the language was in sharp decline, being used daily only ina small number of areas (mainly confined to the western Atlantic seaboard of Kerry and Connemara). Many commentators point to the very important role the Irish-speaking islands played in determining the identity of a newly established state. Fintan OToole remarks: The idea of an island had a special importance for the independent Irish state that was established in 1922. For the young country, the Blasket and Aran islands had, as well as their echoes of Greek myth, a more specific aura of pre-history. They were part of the creation myth of the Irish state in which, as John Wilson had put it 'the western island came to represent Ireland's mythic unity before the chaos of conquest ...at once the vestige and the symbolic entirety of an undivided nation.' They were a past that would also be a future. Their supposed isolation had preserved them from corruption, kept their aboriginal Irishness intact through the long centuries of foreign rule.1 Studies volume 97 number 387 263 This content downloaded from 193.1.234.23 on Wed, 3 Sep 2014 06:54:24 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Eamon Maher There was clearly a strong tendency among many commentators at the turn of the last century to develop the myth that the west, and the islands inparticular, encapsulated the true Gaelic spirit. Terence Browne notes: There was something poignant in fact about the way in which so many Irish imaginations in the early twentieth century were absorbed by the Irishwest, almost as iffrom the anglicised rathermediocre social actuality with itsmanifest problems, its stagnant towns and villages, they sought inspiration for vision in extremities of geography and experience. They looked to the edge of things for imaginative sustenance.2 There was therefore a romantic and idealised notion of island culture that often occluded the harsh reality of those trying to eke out an existence on these outposts from the limited resources at their disposal and in the absence of an efficient means of communicating with the mainland. In addition, the policies of successive Irish governments failed to halt the depopulation and ultimate desertion of the Blasket Islands. In the opinion of Caoimhghin 6 Croidheain: The abandonment of the Blasket Islands in 1953 symbolised the effects of marginalisation and fragmentation of Irish speaking communities. The fact that the withdrawal from the Blaskets happened under the rule of a native government rather than under the former colonial administration of the British authorities demonstrated the real nature of government interests.'3 This symbolic event was certainly a glaring example of where Irish government priorities lay in the wake of the Second World War, a time when, according to Ellis, '10 per cent of Ireland's population owned 66.7 per cent of the land and capital.'4 Political leaders were probably more concerned with the promotion of economic wealth than with preserving Ireland's cultural heritage at this point. This is borne out by the fact that much pressure was being exerted on the Gaeltacht population to speak English.6 Croidheain quotes the 1963 Tuarascail Dheiridh of An Coimisiun urn Athbheochain, inwhich itwas noted that 'even ifthe fall inpopulation was stabilised, such administrative and cultural forces would continue to turn the Gaeltacht into an English speaking area.'5 Itcan be thus deduced that the writing had been on the wall fora long time for those peripheral locations where the Irish language and traditional Irish customs were still extant. Economic forces and pragmatism would ensure that English became the working language of 264 Studies volume 97 number 387 This content downloaded from 193.1.234.23 on Wed, 3 Sep 2014 06:54:24 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions a The Role of theBlasket Autobiographies in thePreservation of Traditional Way of Life a nation hungry to rid themselves of a bleak past and to make theirway in the world. To assess the importance of the Blasket autobiographies ina national and international context, one must be cognisant of the richness of the oral tradition of Gaelic culture and the love of story telling among the island inhabitants. The impending demise of their civilisation added urgency to the need these people felt to chronicle a way of life on the verge of extinction. Before any great culture goes under, itassumes the strong lyric utterance of the Swan Song. The main point this article seeks to make is thatTomas 6 Criomhthain's The Islandman (1929) and Muiris 6 Suilleabhain's Twenty Years a-growing (1933) are vital documents for anyone interested inwhat made the inhabitants of the Blaskets unique representatives of a traditional way of Irish life that finally succumbed to the inroads of modernity.61 have chosen not to deal with Peig Sayers (1873-1958), as her autobiography, Peig (1936), was mandatory reading forgenerations of Irish students studying Irish for the Leaving Certificate. The reaction to the textwas largely negative, perhaps due to the fact that young people aged between 16 and 18 found itdifficult to relate to the series of misfortunes that befell this unfortunate woman, whose very name can engender anger and summon up bad memories. The tone of 6 Criomhthain's The Islandman ismore elegiac than that of 6 Suilleabhain's account, but this is largely as a result of itsbeing written at a stage when its author was already well into his twilight years. 6 Suilleabhain had had the opportunity to witness the reaction to his predecessor's autobiography before describing his own childhood and early manhood spent on the island. He eventually left the Great Blasket to join An Garda Siochana, the Irish police force established after the country won independence fromBritish rule. Because of lifebeing viewed through child-like eyes and at a stage when 6 Suilleabhain was no longer living on the island, Twenty years a-growing is far more buoyant in its celebration of the joys associated with living inclose proximity to nature, the excitement of hunting animals and collecting birds' eggs, the joys of music and conversation, the solidarity among neighbours. The harsher side of life,the pain of premature death or the doubts felt in relation to an uncertain future, the need to provide for a wife and family, these are all absent in the younger man's account. Declan Kiberd argues that the world evoked in The Islandman 'is almost medieval'7, an accurate description Studies volume 97 number 387 265 This content downloaded from 193.1.234.23 on Wed, 3 Sep 2014 06:54:24 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Eamon Maher when one considers that the islands were often inaccessible by sea and even when you did manage to reach the mainland, there was a few hours' walk to the nearest town of any significance, Dingle.

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